Event news
The ecology of large cities and countries was discussed in Saint Petersburg
With these words of the welcoming letter from the Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko, the plenary session of the XXII International Forum “The Big City Ecology” opened on March 22 at the EXPOFORUM.
Aleksandr Dvoynykh, Senator of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Agrarian and Food Policy and Natural Resource Management read the welcoming letter to the organizers, participants and visitors of the Forum, in which importance of environmental protection for the further well-being of mankind was emphasized.
Issues of environmental safety and reduction of negative impact on the environment are priorities of state policy, enshrined in the National Development Goals of Russia until 2030. They are synchronized with the Strategy of Environmental Safety of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025 and the National Project “Ecology.”
The Forum provides the opportunity to get acquainted with particular examples of implementation of environmental projects, and consolidates common efforts, said Aleksandr German, Chairman of the Committee on Natural Resource Management, Environmental Protection and Environmental Safety.
According to his report on implementation of the environmental agenda of Saint Petersburg, the unique system for collecting hazardous waste from the population has been created in Saint Petersburg — 480 ecoterminals for batteries and compact lamps, 10 ecoterminals and 2 ecomobiles for receiving the entire list of hazardous waste.
According to him, through the system development, in 2022, over 170 metric tons of hazardous waste were collected from the city’s residents, which is almost 5 times more than in 2021.
“Since 2023, Saint Petersburg has been included in the federal project “Clean Country” within the National Project “Ecology.” The support of the federal center will allow starting work on elimination of accumulated damage at the facility “Former landfill on the territory of the state nature reserve of regional significance “Lake Shchuchye.” Elimination of the accumulated environmental damage will improve the environment and the quality of life of the population of Saint Petersburg,” the Head of the department said.
Olga Khomova, General Director of the State Academic Chapel of Saint Petersburg, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Board of the Union of Concert Organizations of Russia, continued the topic of ecology of big cities. She spoke about the project of the Chapel’s art-yards, created by the Center for Creative Industries with the support of the Saint Petersburg Committee for Culture.
“People, being in the center of Saint Petersburg, get into the yard of the Chapel and find themselves in a very special ecological atmosphere of the big city. Based on the experience of implementing this project, we, together with the Committee for Improvement of Saint Petersburg, plan to create the project “Music of Landscapes”: music will sound in our city’s small gardens and parks and create a special mood,” Olga Khomova shared the plans.
According to the head of the Chapel, this project will increase the tourist and cultural capabilities of Saint Petersburg and any other big city.
Turning to the topic of preserving water resources, Acting Head of the Neva-Ladoga Basin Water Management Marina Kazmina reminded the Forum audience that Russia ranks first in the world in terms of fresh water reserves, and noted the importance of water bodies as the basis of human life and activity. In this regard, the Federal Agency of Water Resources, as part of the National Project “Ecology,” implements two federal projects — “Improvement of the Volga” and “Preservation of unique sites.”
“16 regions in the river catchment are engaged in implementation of the project on improving the Volga River. Last year, the project participants completed work on clearing the channels, which are fish passages, — the Karaysky, Belinsky and Kirovsky ones in the Astrakhan Region, with their length of 76.8 km. Within the second project, 11 measures for ecological rehabilitation of water bodies, with total area of 1.26 thousand ha, were implemented,” Marina Kazmina shared her experience and noted that for 2023, a number of measures for construction and reconstruction of sewage treatment facilities, clearing and dredging of fish channels of the Lower Volga and other water bodies of the Neva-Ladoga water catchment was also planned.
Particular attention of the audience was attracted by the report of Rashid Ismailov, Chairman of the Russian Ecological Society, in which he formulated 4 recommendations aimed at building public confidence in the government and the corporate sector: regional authorities — to involve external experts in cooperation, the corporate sector — to create channels of communication with the public and the media, officials, regardless of the level of power — to explain the norms and laws in simple language, legislators — to increase responsibility of bloggers for posting false information.
The expert speakers exchanged best practices on solving environmental problems in the regions of Russia and other countries and outlined the vectors of development of the environmental agenda for the coming year.
The Forum is supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Committee for Natural Resource Management, Environmental Protection and Environmental Safety of the Government of Saint Petersburg, the Committee for Saint Petersburg Improvement, the Roszapovedcenter of the Russian Federation.
The official website of the Forum: https://ecology.expoforum.ru/en/
